With Alphabet (Google), Donuts Inc. and upstart Nu Dot Co LLC, competing against each other, the winning bid was produced by Nu Dot Co LLC. Backed by Verisign – the registry for .COM and .NET – Nu Dot Co beat out the both Alphabet’s and Donuts’ massive coffers, combined.

Verisign’s recent acquisition of .WEB allows it to add this veritable extension to its portfolio of highly successful and profitable domain extensions. Given the sizable cost to bring .WEB under its wing, it’s a fair assumption to make that Verisign plans to generate returns on .WEB. With a combined 141 million domain names registered through both .COM and .NET, Verisign undoubtedly has the capacity to monetize the extension successfully.

But what if its acquisition was merely a play to defend its position in the market? With Alphabet/Google as one of the companies competing to secure the extension, there’s no doubt that the search engine giant had big plans for .WEB.